Gestures
by JDPhoenix
Summary: Katara looks ahead while Zuko looks behind. Somehow they end up at the same place.


Afterward - after they stole back Sokka's space sword and freed the prisoners and ended what was pretty much a good day all around - there was yelling. Lots of yelling. All of it coming from Sokka.

About the fifth time he demanded what Katara was thinking, she finally cut into his tirade to give him an answer.

"I was thinking it would get us inside!" she yelled back, just as loud but not nearly as hoarse as he was by this point. "And it _did!_ We got in and we saved all those people. That's a _good thing_."

She looked to the fire Aang had built at the center of the campsite. He was still hunched over it, shoulders tight and face turned towards the flames.

"Isn't it?" Katara asked, her voice going soft and unsure. Her ire slipped away, sinking under the weight of realization. She'd been pushing his crush out of her mind, trying to forget in hopes it would just go away, but if Aang's closed-off expression was any indication, it hadn't.

His eyes darted in her direction but didn't quite reach her. He shrugged and flicked his fingers at the flames, causing tiny pops and sparks.

"Yeah," Toph said, answering her question before Sokka could build up a second wind. "I'm pretty sure that guard is _still_ thinking about how good it was."

Katara consoled herself with the thought that, if Toph could see her, she would be struck dead by the force of her betrayed expression.

"Right! Right!" Sokka yelled anew. "Anything could've-"

"But it didn't," Suki said firmly and Katara had never been more grateful for her presence. Nothing could shut Sokka up faster than a few words from his girlfriend. "Katara is fine. Your sword is fine. Everyone is fine. So let's just drop it, okay?"

Sokka crossed his arms and muttered to himself about women and propriety and the responsibilities of older brothers. Katara was pretty sure if she listened to him any longer she'd freeze him to a tree and leave him there all night.

"I need some more water for dinner," she said loudly enough to drown Sokka out.

She grabbed the biggest of the pots and stomped into the trees towards the distant sound of running water. She crashed through the low hanging branches, banging the pot against trunks and generally making as much noise as possible so she wouldn't hear Sokka if he started up again. She only stopped when she reached the large, towering boulders that dotted the riverbank. Her pot would make an impressive noise if banged against one of them, but it would also dent and she didn't need that headache. She let it hang at her side, somehow heavier than it had felt before.

She'd done what she needed to do to get them inside the base. Why couldn't they see that?

"You shouldn't have done that." Zuko's voice made her jump. The pot fell to the ground at her feet and she had a wave of water aimed at him before his identity fully registered. Rather than let it go to waste, she used the water to right the bucket and fill it up before letting the excess fall back into the river.

"What are you doing out here?" She had to tilt her head back to see him sitting on top of one of the boulders, silhouetted against the waxing moon. It made his hair look even more unkempt than usual.

"Keeping watch. Sokka's making too much noise."

Katara scoffed, choosing to focus instead on his earlier words. "Of course you agree with him."

He turned his head only slightly from the horizon, peering at her out of his good eye. "I don't."

She blinked and dropped her petulant stance. "But you said-"

"I _said_ you shouldn't have done it. Sokka's mad because you're his baby sister and he had to watch you make out with a Fire Nation soldier."

"It wasn't fun for me either, you know." The guard had been young, too small for his armor and just as inexperienced at kissing as he was in battle if all that pawing and slobbering was any indication. The memory washed over her and she shuddered, hoping to shake the phantom memory of his touch away.

"Good," Zuko said, his voice strangely low. He coughed into his fist. In a more normal tone he asked, "Do you know why they call my uncle the Dragon of the West?"

Before she could answer he tilted his head back and breathed a long tongue of flame into the night. It dissipated quickly and she kept her eyes on the patch of sky where it had been, watching the stars reappear as if he'd breathed them into existence.

Zuko slid down the side of the boulder, landing beside her pot.

"Firebending comes from the breath. It's a huge show of trust to kiss a firebender. That guy probably knew you were tricking him the minute you grabbed him and only let you get away with it because you're a pretty girl."

Zuko went very, very still after that, which Katara might have noticed if she hadn't been too busy rolling her eyes.

"That doesn't make any sense," she said. "You can also make fire in the palm of your hand so I was in just as much danger of being burned alive as I was of getting my lips burned off."

"It's just a tradition, okay?" For someone who'd been annoyed with Sokka's yelling, Zuko was being pretty loud now.

He slammed his shoulder into the boulder in an attempt at leaning casually against it. His toe struck her pot and might have overturned it if she'd brought any of the smaller ones.

"And it's a lot more serious than having your lips burned," he added more quietly. "There's a legend, from before the islands were joined together, about a woman named Tejal."

Katara squirmed, wishing for the first time she'd just barreled into things earlier instead of trying to be sneaky and charm her way in. She really didn't want to hear what horrible fate had befallen Tejal. She might have stopped Zuko there but he'd adopted a gentle cadence in his voice, the same one she'd heard so often around the fire back in the South Pole when someone would tell an old, familiar story. Just like she knew those, Zuko must have heard this one so many times it had worn a groove in his mind and he had only to follow it to its end.

"She was beautiful and received offers of marriage from every corner of her island but she was also prudent and chose a strong, powerful warrior. He gave her jewels and fine furs, built a palace by the sea for her. Then one day she asked if they might sail to a neighboring island. Her husband did not want to go and asked what she thought she could find there that was better than the island they called home. They fought. When it seemed almost hopeless, that neither of them would give way, Tejal stopped their yelling and apologized. She kissed her strong, powerful husband and sent flame through the back of his skull."

Zuko shifted uneasily against the stone. "She was one of my ancestors," he finished awkwardly. "That's what they say, at least."

Katara was actually not surprised by that last bit but decided against saying as much because Zuko looked miserable enough as it was.

"So," she said because it seemed like the sort of word that would be followed by more but they didn't come as easily as she'd hoped.

He ran a hand through his hair and breathed in through his teeth like she'd struck him. "It's just a dumb story. It's probably not even true." He grabbed her pot for her and she could see his muscles taut under his skin in the moonlight. He gestured for her to lead the way and the water sloshed.

"It's not dumb," she said but led the way back all the same. It was slow going with her stopping every few feet to hold branches aside so he could pass. "I think it's sweet."

Zuko scoffed and she chose to believe it more a grunt of exertion.

"Not the murder but the trust thing. That you should really trust someone - anyone, really - before you kiss them." Her voice went quiet at the end and her hand stilled on the branch she'd been reaching out for. She could definitely have used a morality tale like that one before she met Jet. Aang could probably use it now. Not that she'd ever hurt him the way Tejal hurt her husband, but she didn't know if he could trust her with his heart. At least not the way he wanted to.

Zuko's arm brushed up against her side. "Do you want me to kill him?" he asked. "Or did Sokka beat me to it?"

She might have thought he was serious if he were any good at all at joking. She laughed more at his uneven delivery than the joke itself.

"It's fine." At his inquiring look she added, "_Really_. He was a jerk - and he's gone now anyway."

Zuko's expression shuttered. "I'm sorry."

There was really no response to that - and Katara wasn't sure if she wanted or needed his condolences besides - so she continued on.

"What about you?"

He was silent for several steps.

"There was a girl in Ba Sing Se, but she didn't know I was a firebender."

She waited, knowing from the tone of his voice that there was more coming.

"And there was someone else. Someone who knew. You've met actually. Azula's friend, Mai."

Katara turned to face him. "The one with the _knives_?"

He stopped, straddling a root between his feet, the pot held against his forward knee. "_What_." It was more a challenge than a question and she knew she was dangerously close to something.

She held up her hands. "I just- I didn't mean-" She sighed, figuring she'd earned a little karmic credit by keeping her mouth shut about his ancestry. "She just seems kind of dour."

"_I'm_ dour!" Zuko tried to put a hand to his own chest for emphasis but nearly lost his grip on the pot. Katara lunged forward to help keep it upright and they ended up holding it between them.

"I know," she said softly, hoping to dissipate some of his anger. "That's why I would've thought you'd fit better with someone … less dour."

His eyes moved over her face and her heart sped up the way it did when a fight was imminent. But he didn't attack her, only reached for her handle to take the pot once more. She let him and stepped quickly back. To make room for him. Of course.

She started talking again, her words coming too fast to dispel the unsettling quiet that threatened to overcome them. "That's just my opinion though. What matters is your opinion and you trust her and that's all that-"

"She's not a firebender."

"I know," she said quickly. "But you are and she-"

"Yeah, but _she's_ not."

Katara turned again. "Would you have kissed her? If she was?"

He was the one who brought them here but he still looked taken off guard by the question. He looked away and it was as much of an answer as if he'd spoken.

They set off again and this time Katara let the silence fill the space between them. When they were near camp, close enough that the light of the fire flickered through the trees, Zuko spoke softly.

"Tejal's story isn't about her husband - we don't even remember his name - it's about her. It's about how, when someone gives you their trust, you have a responsibility to them. To keep it safe and unbroken."

Aang's laugh rang out up ahead and Katara's stomach knotted.

"Tejal never had a chance to make things right with her husband."

"Do you think she could've?" Katara asked softly, her eyes glued to the shadows moving beyond the trees.

"I hope so," he said and he seemed to really mean it. "It would take time, not some big gesture. Little ones. Little things to let him know that she cared even if she'd been an idiot before. Most people think she didn't care about him at all, that she just wanted the power, but it's easy to do bad things when you don't have to face the people you hurt. When you do, though, when you have the chance to face up to what you did to them, they can make you want to be better next time."

"If there is a next time," Katara muttered sadly and pushed through into the circle of light.

"Hey, Katara!" Aang called. He was juggling stones without touching them, catching the ones Toph tossed his way and adding them to the circuit. Toph threw a rock the size of his head that he nearly missed for looking at Katara. His smile only grew when he caught it.

Katara's smile grew brittle. If Aang confronted her again, she'd have to tell him the truth and hope she could make things right later.

She began arranging supplies for dinner by the fire and Zuko set the pot at her elbow. It wasn't until she moved to set it over the fire that she realized it was already steaming.

* * *

They were running - to Azula, to the end, to what could very easily be their deaths - and Katara reached out to pull him to a stop.

"What?" he asked, looking everywhere at once for the trouble he thought she'd seen.

She was nearly panting and didn't think it was all from the running. "I just wanted you to know before - before whatever happens."

He shook his head slightly, confused. She reached for his shoulders to pull herself up and kissed him. It was quick, over as soon as it began, but there wasn't time for more.

For a moment, as he blinked at her in shock and his good cheek pinkened, she worried she'd only made things worse, complicated things when everything was already bad enough.

His expression cleared, surprise replaced by gratitude. They ran onward together.


End file.
